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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Now that's an ad.

"We are not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business" - Rolex CEO.

Rolex today only gets chronometer certification for about 3% of its output. Any decent quartz watch is more accurate than the best mechanical watches. Chronometer certification for a mechanical watch only requires -4/+6 secs/day. The best quartz watches are good for 5 seconds a year.

Unless you also have a boat, a sextant, and a nautical almanac, but no GPS, a chronometer watch isn't going to do you much good.

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Do you have a source on that 3% figure? I believe that only approximately 3% of Swiss watches are COSC[1] certified but I was also under the impression that all Rolex watches are COSC certified.

I know Rolex by itself makes up over 50% of annual COSC watches and since Rolex themselves never reveal sales figures I've heard that people use the official annual COSC certification numbers as a barometer to how Rolex is doing.

[1]Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres - This is Switzerland's official chronometer testing agency.

I believe the % from Rolex that get certified is 100%. Not 3%.

Most major high-end movements are better than -4/+6 seconds a day anyway.

Mechanical watches are not trying to be accurate compared to quartz watches. Rolex watches could lose 1 minute a day in accuracy and would still sell thousands of watches a year.

Everyone has a phone in their pocket, this product/toy/luxury is not about keeping time.

Sorry, 3% was wrong. Wikipedia says Rolex is < 100% and that Breitling is 100% COSC certified, and that the entire Swiss mechanical watch industry is about 3% certified.

The Rolex Submariner has increased in price about 3x to 6x over inflation since its introduction in 1957.[1]

[1] http://www.ablogtowatch.com/rolex-prices-past-60-years-revea...

Well that's for sure wrong too. That 3% for the industry is outdated, and whatever the current % I think it would refer to % of swiss watches not % of swiss mechanical watches.

Anyway COSC is just marketing bullshit in my opinion, I don't think it matters or many people care about it, if they ever did. COSC is like Consumer Reports/JD Power (& Associates) certificates but for watches. People have long realized the useless scam of such things and know big corporations are probably slanging crap products that work more or less as expected, with a shady-at-best warranty in case it doesn't, and don't care about these tests.

That inflation link means you could have bought and worn a mechanical Rolex you liked wearing for decades and made money on it! And at a return % way better than saving the cash and more comparable to the % investing in stocks. Assuming you're diversified, anytime you can enjoy an investment more than just a # sitting in a bank or brokerage account somewhere that is great. Sign me up.

How have the prices of second-hand quartz watches compared to the prices of 2nd hand mechanical watches? Not good for quartz defenders I am guessing. What's the point of companies like Breitling continuing to make quartz watches anyway...

You have not factored in the cost of service, which is substantial

My guess is buyers of mechanical watches know this already. I've never seen a luxury watch advert whose main selling point was the accuracy of the watch.

I remember Rolex adverts "from back in the day".

I destinctly remember them stating that all their watches were COSC Chronometers and explaining what that meant in terms of accuracy.

Now I'm 41 but even then it was post quartz so people weren't buying Rolex watches for their absolute accuracy.

Personally, I have an Omega Speedmaster Professional that I've worn almost everyday since my 30th birthday. It's manual wind and keeps even worse time than any Chronometer but I love it and don't covert any other (smart)watch.

Owning a mechanical watch is ...odd, I guess. :)

I don't know. Rolex and the like spend a lot of money advertising at sporting events (Tennis, F1, Olympics, etc). Often there is a prominent Rolex clock or "Omega Timing" ("Official Timekeeper!") and there is certainly an implication of precision and accuracy.

> Any decent quartz watch is more accurate than the best mechanical watches.

Nobody I know who enjoys mechanical watches would disagree with you on this. You do not buy a mechanical watch, especially a Rolex or similar brand, because you want to know what time it is.

In my opinion, the greatest advantage to an automatic is never getting ripped off by a watch repair place again.

With past watches, one little issue that required a visit to a repair shop would inevitably incur the $30 "the battery need replacing" tax. Nevermind that I just had it replaced a few months prior.

Note also that Rolex supplies parts only to registered dealers and repair shops, and they are expected to turn away watches with shady provenance which might be grey market. They even make the repair shop return the worn parts, to prevent refurbishing and re-use. While independent dealers can source alternative parts, you now have a watch with parts potentially better but more likely worse than original manufacture.

As much as I appreciate what Rolex can do and be, I find this parts-and-repair behavior really tacky.

My wife bought me a 'nice' watch as a birthday present, a Raymond Weil quartz. Nice thin case that suits my slim build rather well, but... like many other people I hadn't expected the high maintenance cost, but what really put me off was when one link in the bracelet disintegrated. No, Weil don't repair them, and no, they don't sell single links so a jeweler could fix it. They wanted 400UKP for a new bracelet, and so now the fancy watch sits on the shelf and an Apple watch does me very well.

That's what people failed to understand about Apple Watch. Everyone else makes wrist computers first, watches second. Apple Watch is the other way around: watch first computer second. It's not quite there yet as a watch, but it'll get there, probably this year. Jony Ive is a watch nerd, he knows it.

Rolex goes a step beyond COSC with their Superlative Chronometer certification. While I hate they splash it all over the dial, 100% of the movements they make are certified to +2/-2 seconds per day. That even includes the new Air King, which historically hasn't been chronometer certified and why it was always the lowest cost Rolex.

Even the Tudor in house movements are being COSC certified now. Tudor has always used the highest grade ETA movements which can be COSC certified but never bothered to. Now the new movements they are making themselves are going in for testing.

Mechanical watches will never be as accurate as a good quartz watch, that is an indisputable fact. On the other hand, telling the time with nothing but springs and gears has an analogue magic that delights me every time I wear one of my mechanical watches. When I spend the day surrounded by integrated circuits and batteries it's really relaxing to have something nearby that is disconnected and simple.

I own a thermo-corrected quartz watch and I can't measure the drift on it. Between the twice yearly changes due to daylight saving time the drift is less than a second. I continue to be amazed that I can have something this accurate strapped to my wrist.

There are people like me thought, that are watch enthusiasts, and watch collectors.

Also I appreciate mechanical automatic over quartz movement, and I also love hacking the winding etc.

Also don't forget obviously if you have a mobile phone that can connect to the internet you'll always have the time right no matter what.

Watches nowadays are some kind of a prestige thing really, its like women handbags.

Even if all the errors compounded in the same direction half an hour per year isn't so bad.

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